Gombe students protest non-payment of bursary

Addressing journalists shortly after the association’s executive meeting yesterday in Gombe, the Public Relations Officer, Comrade Mubarak Abubakar, said since the commencement of the Dankwambo administration in 2011, they had received bursary only once.
“During his campaign in 2011, the governor promised to increase our bursary to 100 per cent but he failed to fulfil that promise. What we are asking for is payment of our two years bursary. We collect the least amount, yet government is not living up to expectation,” he said.
Comrade Mubarak claimed that they wrote about ten letters to the governor, and that five of them were on the bursary issue, but that nothing was done.
Also speaking, Comrade Mustapha Usman Hassan, financial secretary of the association, said “we have concluded that the bursary needs to be paid and we want government to look into this matter.”
When contacted the state Commissioner for Higher Education, Isa Muhammad Wade, said Mustapha was no longer a student and could not speak on behalf of the association.
“He graduated from the Federal Polytechnic, Damaturu, and he is the son of APC gubernatorial candidate in the state. Even at that, it is the president that is supposed to talk on behalf of the students’ union,” he said.